Q&A: Daniel Radcliffe, Less Potter Than Ever

PARK CITY, Utah — Murder, history, gay sex, and literary royality: Kill Your Darlings is practically a search-optimized killer app at the Sundance Film Festival, and one of the most successful premieres of the opening weekend here. The film is essentially the origin story of the Beats: the story of how a very young Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe), Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), and William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) all came to know each other through the beguiling, rich-kid connector Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan). Luckily, John Krokidas's debut film is low on pretension and, instead, bridles the wild, immature energy of these college-aged kids and rides it into a taut tale of murder, based on the real-life, little-told story of Carr and an obsessive admirer. To say the least, it's a major departure for the artist formerly known as Harry Potter, who plays a young Ginsberg finding his voice, and his sexual mojo. We chatted with Daniel Radcliffe about his life post-Potter and, as he says, "the boy wizard having had his knees pinned behind his ears."

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ESQUIRE.COM: So, Sundance is very different from the Harry Potter universe. What's surprised you the most?

DANIEL RADCLIFFE: I suppose the sort of gifting-suite things, which are just bizarre. Where people want to give you scarves and stuff. Yesterday, I brushed up against a phone, and a woman appeared to tell me everything I wanted to know. I mean, I have a phone. I'm not looking for a new one no matter how glamorous it may be. And there are a lot of paparazzi. But it's been a wonderful weekend. It's lovely to have a film that everyone's really excited about.

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ESQ: I was crazy about the Beats as a teen. And since I work in magazines, I'm sometimes haunted by that Ginsberg line, "Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time magazine? I'm obsessed by Time. I read it every week." Do you have a favorite line?

DR: Ben Foster was a massive William S. Burroughs fan, but I was just aware of and enjoyed his poetry to a degree. I don't have a favorite line, but I have a favorite poem: "Kaddish," because of the way your knowledge of his life and his mother informs the way you read his poetry. It's a real heartbreaker.

ESQ: In this film, a young Ginsberg shakes off his more conservative life and embraces a wild new identity. Are you having a similar experience, leaving Harry Potter?

DR: You know, I didn't think of that at first, but John [Krokidas], the director, he thought of that long before I did, and it's one of the reasons he thought I was suited to this part — because he thought I was living through a real-life arc of this journey. Someone asked me if it was intimidating to play the Beats, and it is intimidating, but it's not daunting if you stop thinking of them as the Beats, and think of them as people going on a very universal journey of self-discovery and joy and then responsibility. You need to experience both to find out who you are. When you're seventeen to early twenties, that's the time you're trying to work out who you are. If you're trying to make some kind of artistic or creative impact, that's the age when you start to figure out how to do that. As much as it can be a source of great frustration, from that frustration you can build ambition.

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ESQ: Are you feeling any sort of ambition you didn't feel, say, five years ago?

DR: Yes. Not everyone has to run around New York City and do drugs and be involved with a murderer. But, yes, leaving Potter, working on new things — more than anything what it's confirmed is how much I want to direct. I want to write, too, but that's what I know now I didn't know five years ago.

ESQ: When you direct a film, would it be more likely to be big commercial thriller, or the kind of film that ends up here at Sundance?

DR: I think Sundance is probably the most likely option. My taste in the films I've taken as an actor is similar to what I'd do a director or writer: all quite odd, challenging stuff, slightly off-the-wall.

ESQ: I'm imagining you reading Ginsberg on the set of Harry Potter. Did you feel like you were outgrowing that world toward the end?

DR: Not particularly — we were not made to feel like kids when we were 19, 20, 21. If I was reading Ginsberg, cool. But certainly I know what you're saying. It's almost like I wouldn't say I outgrew Potter while I was there, but your capacity to learn and grow after a while when you've been in one environment for a very long time and very comfortable there, decreases. What I've learned is there has to be an element of fear, or anxiety that it might not turn out okay.

DR: I'm of the opinion: You take the job, you read the script. I was on set once for a nude scene with an actress who knew what was going on and then had a panic about the sex scene. I remember thinking, You knew this was coming and now you're slowing down the shoot. It's as if I'd read this script, then said, on set, "Oh, actually can we just kiss and cuddle?" like an idiot. "Can I keep my trousers on for the sex scene?" I mean, it's in the script. It's in the script, you take the job. I'm not massively squeamish about sex at all. It happens.

ESQ: And yet people are still shocked by Harry Potter doing it.

DR: It's shocking by the sheer fact that it's me. Otherwise, it's entirely unshocking that I'm playing Allen Ginsberg in a film about self and sexual discovery, and there's a sex scene. As my costar Dane DeHaan said, people are often attracted to each other and people who are attracted to each other often want to have sex. I'm just happy that it's a well-done scene. John had never seen the version of that scene that he wanted: gay sex in a film that felt very real. He wanted to achieve that and he did. It's also led to friends texting me amusing lines from reviews, which have really made me laugh.

ESQ: Like what?

DR: One very cool one said something like, "The sex scene will probably be called graphic because it's between two men, but it isn't." Then there was one about the boy wizard having had his knees pinned behind his ears.

ESQ: I've heard some jokes about your "magic wand."

DR: Yes, John Krokidas made that joke at the Q&A, and I told Dane, "Oh, no, we're going to hear that line to the end of the word."

ESQ: I heard that there was full-frontal footage, but it was left on the cutting-room floor.

DR: The amount of nudity in the film could vary quite a lot. But it's important to have more people see the film. And we'd have different ratings with more penises in this film. Excuse the pun, but it's not the point of the thing. The close-ups of my face, that's where the story is being told. There's no full-frontal nudity in the end, but we did our jobs.

ESQ: You're not the only franchise star transitioning to more artsy films. Do you feel a rivalry there? Ever see Robert Pattinson getting great roles and think, He was once the kid in the background of my scenes at Hogwarts?

DR: With Rob, I look at people and I think it's easy to spot the ones who are in it for the right reasons, who want careers with longevity. What's interesting about mine and Rob's scenario is that Potter and Twilight are what made us, but Jennifer Lawrence had an Oscar nomination before Hunger Games. Mentally, we're rooting for each other. Franchises aren't to be avoided. They can be exciting and they give you opportunities to do other films. And it's always pleasing to see it's possible to come out of a franchise, have a career, and be respected, when you see these other actors.

ESQ: And your costar Dane DeHaan is about to play Harry Osborne in the Spider-Man franchise.

DR: People ask me if I have advice — he doesn't need any advice. This idea that starring in a franchise is more intimidating and an independent film actor will just shit his bricks on a big set is just ridiculous.